Talk: Keep Your Friends Close and Your Frenemies Closer, May 4

OnApril 27, 2012

“Keep Your Friends Close and Your Frenemies Closer: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Early Adolescents’ Friendships based on Prosocial Behavior and Physical Aggression” by Jonathan Bruce Santo, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Friday May 4, 7 p.m. in the Round Room, Ford Center for the Fine Arts. (7 p.m. refreshments, 7:15 p.m. lecture)
How do adolescents choose their friends and what happens when friends behave more like ‘frenemies’? In this talk, Professor Ferguson will present results from a cross-cultural study of over 1000 early adolescents in Montréal, Canada and Barranquilla, Colombia to explore how prosocial and/or aggressive behavior influences friendship rankings (being a best friend versus a third best friend for example). Results show some differences in friendship selection across cultures based on individualism, but across both cultures the rule of thumb is to keep your friends close and your frenemies closer.